The Prophecy Out of Bounds Chapter Eight

He was going to have to get out of this, no question. He pushed the book hastily into the inside of his tunic.

‘Come on Kaleem,’ said Zema. ‘Don’t be difficult.’ She held out her hand towards him. ‘Come on, then, the book.’

Kaleem fumbled inside his tunic. He pulled his arm out and grabbed Zema’s arm and twisted it. He clenched his teeth. This was really the last thing he wanted to do, but there was no choice. He wasn’t sure, whether he’d got the strength to hurt her, or the energy to run away from her.

Zema screeched in pain and tried to pull her arm away from him. He gave it one more twist and then let it go. She fell to the floor clutching her arm and shouting ‘Get him. Don’t let him get away.’

Kaleem darted forward. At least he could run. He had managed to keep himself quite fit despite being cooped up with a dataserve a lot of the time. By the time he’d got to the other side of the cave, to the side which lead into the cave with the glass roof, the other people in the room had only just reacted. They didn’t look too fit. He stood a chance.

The droids in the records room didn’t seem to be disturbed by the noise. Kaleem spotted an empty console. He darted underneath it and pulled a box that was at the side of it over in front of him.

‘Seal the entrances. Scan the caves,’ he heard Zema shouting as she came into this cave.

If they were going to scan, he didn’t have much of a chance. They’d find him by his body heat alone. He wouldn’t be able to hide from them.

The droids didn’t seem to be reacting much to Zema, but all at once all the fans on the dataserves started making a lot of noise. The droids must be activating the security programmes. Seconds later, there was a loud clunking. Kaleem guessed that some sort of gate must be coming down to the entrance of this cave system. He really didn’t have much of a chance. Could he hide the book somewhere? At least that would stop them doing anything with it for a while.

A droid stopped suddenly in front of the console.

This is it, though Kaleem. They’ll get me any minute now.

Then it occurred to them, that although all the operatives in this section of the cave network were droids, they were dressed like normal humans. Could he do it? Could he pretend to be a droid? Would the other droids notice? Would Zema? Well, she would if he couldn’t do anything to disguise himself. Then he noticed something shiny and metallic  sticking out of the cardboard box. Could he use that to make it look like one of the masks that some of the humans and some of the droids used? He daren’t move for the moment, though. Not with the droid there. And who knows how long it was going to stand there? This may all be over before it had really begun. The scanner would be sure to pick him up any second now.

A wave of warmth air drifted towards Kaleem. It was coming from the droid. They’re overheating, thought Kaleem. That’s why they’re not picking me up. It must be all the extra security measures. Or some other fault. He did wonder how they kept all their systems going here without the authorities finding out. They probably did get lots of breakdowns. It looked as if  luckily for him one was happening right now.

‘Search. Search between inner and outer gates,’ commanded Zema. She sounded hysterical now.

The droid hurried off in the direction of the door. Kaleem pulled at the piece of metal he had seen sticking out of the box. It not only looked like a mask. It was a mask. He slipped it on. It immediately it moulded itself to his face.  Now what? He thought. That had been a stupid thing to do. Goodness knows what this mask was supposed to do. Still, at least Zema wore one too.

Could he get away with this?

His heart thudded as he crawled out from under the console. This cave was deserted. The exit was now being guarded. The droids and the human operators were searching in the passages between the main entrance to the complex and the door to this cave system.

As Kaleem walked forward, he became aware of what the mask did. He started hearing instructions being whispered into his ear and a transparent holomovie appeared in front of him. The mask was telling him and showing exactly where he was. Was this some form of portable dataserve?

‘Alternative route to main exit?’ he whispered.

Immediately a three dimensional map holoed in front of him. He walked out of the exit, remembering to imitate the slightly stiffer movements of a droid and hold his head steady, suddenly jerking it to the side when need be. If he could call up information like this, so could the other droids and humans who were wearing similar masks. He wasn’t safe yet.

He carried on following the mask’s instructions. It was definitely taking him away from the other activity.

‘Can we really get out this way?’ asked Kaleem.

‘We are approaching an emergency exit,’ said the mask. ‘The escapee may have taken this route.’

Kaleem smiled to himself. The mask had not realised he was the escapee. The technology here was clever, just not all that clever. He just hoped it would stay that way.

‘How far to entrance?’ he asked the mask.         

‘One point five kilometres,’ reported the mask. ‘Is there an emergency?’ asked the mask. ‘Should emergency lock be activated?’

‘Yes, there is an emergency,’ said Kaleem. ‘There is a fire in central control.’  He hoped that the central control really was where he’d guessed it was. That would mean that the others would not try to cross back to this exit. They might try and go round or over the top, though.

‘The emergency lock is opened,’ said the mask ‘and a fire-proof transporter will be waiting. How many personnel will board?’

‘Just me,’ said Kaleem. I hope, he thought.

‘Proceed,’ said the mask.

Kaleem ran forward, following the arrows which the mask flashed up in front of him. He was soon out of breath. Eventually, though, he came to a blank wall. As soon as he stopped running, a stone door slid open.

And now? he thought.

‘Transporter approaching,’ said the mask.

He seemed to wait an age but at least there didn’t seem to be anybody following him.  Then there was a faint rumbling. It gradually grew louder and then suddenly in front of him was a standard, if a little old, two-person transporter.

Kaleem climbed into it.  ‘How do I get this thing to work?’ he muttered. He’d never before had a transporter all to himself.

‘Set coordinates for Excluded Zone Edge?’ asked the mask.

What on Terrestra was the Excluded Zone? Was that where the Hidden Information Centre was based?

‘I guess,’ mumbled Kaleem. Anything which would get him away from here would be good. And now would be better that later.

The transporter lurched forward and was soon hurtling along through the dark, just casting enough light in front of it from its two headlights for Kaleem to see that they were still in the underground system.

‘This face unit will stop working when we reach the Edge,’ reported the mask. ‘Shall we load manual control ready?’

‘Yes, ‘said Kaleem. ‘I hope’s there’s an instruction programme.’

‘Loaded, ready,’ reported the mask. ‘Sixty seconds to face unit shut down.’ The mask started counting. It reached zero and switched itself off. Kaleem ripped it off. The transporter stopped moving. A row of lights appeared in front of Kaleem. A movie clip started playing, and pointed out how he could set coordinates for anywhere on Terrestra. He gave the transporter his cave home address. It started to move again as the movie clip showed him how he could make the transporter go faster, or turn if he wanted to take a different direction.  There was even a control which made it go up or down. He couldn’t see that he’d need any of these. It looked as if the transporter was going to take him right home, and through the long forgotten underground cave system at that. But just for fun, he sent the transporter zooming forward faster, and then made it go up as near to the roof as he dare. This was actually quite something.

He became aware of sound coming from behind him. He looked. There was another transporter catching up with him fast. He could just make out the person driving it. Ninety!

Kaleem used the control which made it go even faster and dived back down towards the ground.